Transgenderness is about identifying with the opposite gender, so is about gender not sex. Therefore being transgender is nothing to do with sexuality.

However, just like every other human being, every transgender person has a sexuality. Just like every other human being, we can be gay, straight, bisexual or asexual. And just like every other human being, we can have a diverse collection of sexual turn-ons.

Quite a few transgender people have a kinkiness that may be related to society’s repression of transgenderness. At a young age, afraid of the stigma of crossdressing, a guilt-free alternative is to imagine being compelled to do so by others. Alternatively, sometimes transgression itself can become a turn-on. Or even the exhilaration of risk. All of these factors may get hardwired into the young transgender person’s sexuality as they go through puberty.

But it’s important to note that sexual kinks are actually present in most people, not just those who happen to be transgender. Males in particular almost always have some degree of fetishistic response, but it remains largely taboo for them to admit as much.

In fact the biggest difference between transgender people and the mainstream is that transgender people tend to be relaxed about sexual difference. As taboo breakers ourselves, and as part of the LGBT community, we know that sexuality is a diverse, wonderful, liberating part of the human experience.

Mainstream society, however, remains hugely repressed. Ever since Kinsey first published Sexual Behaviour of the Human Male in 1948, there has been ever-growing evidence of a huge natural diversity in human sexual response. Yet despite obvious confirmation of this in recent years by the sheer volume and variety of internet porn, many in mainstream society remain in denial and feel threatened when their sexual feathers are ruffled.

And transgender behaviour does ruffle feathers, especially male ones. The very thought of us can make repressed males realise they may be a bit fetishistic, a bit gay or a bit transgender. It’s not for nothing that Panti, Ireland’s favourite drag queen, describes herself as a Gender Discombobulist.

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